Week 028 — First Launch Attempt

Declared it launch week. Life had other plans.

Week of May 26, 2025

Progress

QR code assignment reached a working state by Thursday. The specific bug that had been blocking it: when attempting to assign a QR code, the check for whether it was already assigned was reading the QR code from the item record — which was the code already on the item, not the new one being assigned. Switched to reading the QR code from the PHP variable passed server-side, and the logic worked correctly.

Exception handling was also added to the ItemRepository class — throwing an exception when an invalid item ID is provided, instead of returning null silently. The error messaging wasn't perfect yet, but the failure mode got louder.

The Hard Part

Memorial Day and Luke and Len's wedding took Monday and Tuesday. Gabrielle's bachelorette party was also this week. The first "launch week" produced two days of actual work. That's the reality of building something while life continues around it.

The Question That Appeared

If every week that involves a major personal commitment produces two useful days of work, what does that mean for launch timelines? The plan had assumed consistent capacity. The actual capacity is whatever's left after everything else.

Next Week

QR code is working. OTP authentication, user sign-up, and production deployment are the remaining major pieces before anything can ship.